Lisa Edgar, the longest-serving member of the Florida Public Service Commission, is seeking another term --- but will face competition from 20 other candidates who range from business people and government officials to a former lawmaker.

With her current term ending Jan. 1, Edgar met a deadline last week to apply for reappointment to the $130,000-a-year job as one of the state's top utility regulators. The applications by Edgar and the other candidates touch off a months-long process that will end with Gov. Rick Scott choosing one of them to serve on the five-member PSC.

With hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, local officials from across Florida sought changes Friday as the state moves forward with new plans for collecting Medicaid payments from counties.

The issue has become highly controversial, after lawmakers in March required that the Agency for Health Care Administration recoup disputed Medicaid charges to the counties going back more than a decade. As of this week, 53 counties had joined a pending lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of the Legislature's move.

More than a year after lawmakers passed a controversial plan to measure teacher performance, a judge Wednesday faced a basic question: Are state education officials being too heavy-handed in carrying out the law?

Administrative Law Judge John Van Laningham held a four-hour hearing about whether the state Department of Education exceeded its legal power in a proposed rule that helps spell out how school districts will evaluate teachers.

Gov. Rick Scott has spent the past several months talking about two big issues: adding jobs and bolstering the public-education system.

So Scott could preen a little Friday when new figures showed the state's unemployment rate had dropped to 8.7 percent in April, down 0.3 percentage points from March and 1.9 points from April 2011.

With the 2013 legislative session still nearly 10 months away, a renewed fight is building about a proposal to limit how much doctors can charge for dispensing drugs to workers'-compensation insurance patients.

As an indication, a subcommittee of the state Government Efficiency Task Force recommended Thursday that the proposal be approved to help reduce workers'-compensation insurance costs.

A federal appeals court Thursday quickly rejected a constitutional challenge to a 2010 Florida election law regulating some outside groups that run political ads or send mailers.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta issued a brief ruling that upheld the law, which places requirements on what are known as "electioneering communications organizations," or ECOs.

With an early legislative session speeding up action in the Capitol, at least three lobbying firms collected more than $1 million in fees during the first three months of the year, according to new reports.

The reports also show that an additional eight firms raked in between $500,000 and $999,999 for their work in the Legislature. Those totals could grow, as lobbyists faced an 11:59 p.m. deadline Tuesday for filing quarterly compensation reports.

Florida Medicaid officials have asked the federal government to approve major changes in a program that serves tens of thousands of people with costly medical conditions, seeking to install a type of managed care and requiring monthly premium payments.

The Agency for Health Care Administration, carrying out a 2011 law, requested changes in the state's Medically Needy program. In a document sent to the federal government in late April, the agency said the proposed changes would improve care for beneficiaries.

A group of major players in the Internet cafe industry is challenging an attempt by the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to require the businesses to open up financial records.

Affiliates of the nonprofit Allied Veterans of the World contend in a lawsuit they are not covered by state charity laws that would require them to register with the department and provide financial information.

With Gov. Rick Scott making plans to run for re-election in 2014, a closely linked political committee raised more than $1 million in April -- and has already collected nearly $2 million this year, according to the committee's website.

The Let's Get To Work Committee received $1.06 million last month, after collecting $918,703 earlier in the year, a list of contributors on the website shows. As a point of comparison, the Florida Democratic Party raised about $1.2 million between Jan. 1 and March 31.